Mediaboss Marketing

Israels offensive on Rafah will likely kill more civilians and is being carried out despite explicit warnings against it from European Union member states and the United States, the EUs top diplomat says.

The Rafah offensive has started again, in spite all the requests of the international community, the US, the European Union member states, everybody asking [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu not to attack, Josep Borrell tells journalists.

I am afraid that this is going to cause again a lot of casualties, civilian casualties. Whatever they say, he says, adding: There are no safe zones in Gaza.

You're a dedicated reader

Were really pleased that youve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

Thats why we started the Times of Israel eleven years ago - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.

So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we havent put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.

For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel

Go here to read the rest:
EU's Borrell: Rafah offensive will cause civilian casualties, no matter what Israel says - The Times of Israel

Digging into the data

So, what does Eurovision have to say about who should be in charge of the European Union?

We looked at the number of Eurovision points that each EU27 country has won over the last 10 years and learned that, in a shock to everyone, Sweden, this years hosts, should be running the show, with a little help from a Southern friend: Italy.

The figures also show that little Malta and Cyprus should move toward center-stage. But Germany needs to take a back seat.

Spare a thought, too, for Luxembourg and Slovakia, who sit at the bottom of the ranking due to their lack of participation in the contest over the last decade. Luxembourg is taking part in this years contest, so it could rise up the rankings, but Slovakia isnt and hasnt been an entrant since 2012.

There are of course many similarities between Eurovision and the EU. Both are relatively exclusive clubs that many want to join, through what we might define as an enlargement process.

Eurovision started in 1956 with seven participating countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland (thats the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community plus the place that gave us Toblerone).

See original here:
Who would run the EU if decided by Eurovision? - POLITICO Europe

Europe is awash with worry. Ahead of parliamentary elections widely expected to deliver gains to the hard right, European leaders can barely conceal their anxiety. In a speech in late April, President Emmanuel Macron of France captured the prevailing mood. After eloquently warning of threats to the continent, he pronounced the need for a newly powerful Europe, a Europe puissance.

As I watched the speech, I was reminded of Niccol Machiavellis comments in the opening pages of The Prince, the 16th-century philosophers seminal treatise on political power. In a dedication to Lorenzo de Medici, the ruler of the Florentine Republic, Machiavelli suggested that politics is in many ways like art. Just as landscape painters imaginatively place themselves in the plains to examine the mountains and on top of mountains to study the plains, so too should rulers inhabit their domains. To know the nature of the people well, one must be a prince, Machiavelli wrote, and to know the nature of princes well, one must be of the people.

Here was a politician grappling with the first part of Machiavellis sentence, an officeholder trying to comprehend the lay of the land. What is power in contemporary Europe, and how should it be exercised by the European Union? Mr. Macron answered in princely fashion, showing awareness of both the finite nature of every political community Europe is mortal, he said and its cyclical vulnerability to crisis. He concluded with a passionate defense of European civilization and urged the creation of a paradigm to revive it.

Yet for all his aspirations, Mr. Macron neglected the second half of Machiavellis sentence: that people also form views on their rulers, which rulers ignore at their peril. Mr. Macron brushed aside the many Europeans who feel the bloc is aloof and inaccessible, describing their disenchantment as a result of false arguments. The dismissal was no aberration. For decades, the leaders of the European Union have overlooked the people in the plains, shutting out the continents citizens from any meaningful political participation. This exclusion has changed the contours of the European landscape, paving the way for the radical right.

When Machiavelli reflected on the crises of his time among them conflicts between major European powers, discontent with public officials and the collapsing legitimacy of the Catholic Church he turned to the Roman Republic for inspiration. When there is skepticism about values, he wrote, history is our only remaining guide. The secret to Roman freedom, he explained in the Discourses on Livy, was neither its good fortune nor its military might. Instead, it lay in the Romans ability to mediate the conflict between wealthy elites and the vast majority of people or as he put it, i grandi (the great) and il popolo (the people).

While the inherent tendency of the great, Machiavelli argued, is to accumulate wealth and power to rule the rest, the inherent desire of the people is to avoid being at the elites mercy. The clash between the groups generally pulled polities in opposite directions. Yet the Roman Republic had institutions, like the tribunate of the plebs, that sought to empower the people and contain the elites. Only by channeling rather than suppressing this conflict, Machiavelli said, could civic freedom be preserved.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?Log in.

Want all of The Times?Subscribe.

Link:
Opinion | Europe Is About to Drown in the River of the Radical Right - The New York Times

(Bloomberg) -- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called on the European Union to mobilize at least 100 billion euros ($108 billion) on defense and build a joint air-defense system as the bloc contends with Russian aggression.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Speaking alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Tusk on Tuesday argued that a long debate on the increasing the blocs defense capability must culminate in a decision soon.

A lot of money spent well and wisely on Europes security will keep the war away from Europes borders for a long time, Tusk told an economic conference in the southern Polish city of Katowice. Maybe permanently.

Polands premier has been ramping up calls for more defense spending as the war in Ukraine stretches into its third year, with Kyiv forces increasingly out-gunned on the battlefield. Warsaw has already said it wants to join the so-called European Sky Shield Initiative, which currently includes 21 countries.

The comments coincided with a number of events that underscored the threat. Security officials in Katowice said a room sweep where Tusk was scheduled to hold an extraordinary cabinet meeting uncovered devices that could be used for eavesdropping.

Elsewhere, prosecutors launched an investigation on a judge for alleged espionage after he fled the country to neighboring Belarus, claiming he was persecuted by Tusks government.

Von der Leyen said the EU should rebuild, replenish and transform its militaries, backing Tusks call for air defense. As the EU has dispatched billions to help Ukraines war effort, the 27-member bloc has fallen short in its ambitions to produce enough ammunition to help Kyiv stave off Russias assault.

Tusk warned that the region needs to spend the coming years building military readiness sufficiently to act as a deterrence against potential foes. He also called on the bloc to bolster its external border.

European borders have to be protected, because they have become the borders between the continent of peace and the aggressors who are preparing a war for us, also using hybrid methods, Tusk said.

--With assistance from Maciej Martewicz.

(Updates with security concerns, von der Leyen comments from fifth paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Read more from the original source:
Poland's Tusk Calls on EU to Build Joint Air-Defense System - Yahoo! Voices

Chinese President Xi Jinping faced criticism from European Union leaders but open arms in Belgrade and Budapest.

(CN) Amid a sharp worsening of relations between China and the West, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday began in earnest a divisive European trip where he faced trade and military barbs from European Union leaders but a warm welcome in Serbia and Hungary, two problematic countries for Brussels.

Tensions between China and the European Union have escalated in line with the growing conflict between Beijing and Washington, though European leaders have tried to take a less aggressive approach than their American counterparts.

Xi and his wife arrived in Paris on Sunday evening before the Chinese president arguably the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong was welcomed Monday by French President Emmanuel Macron to the lyse to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

On Jan. 27, 1964, French President Charles de Gaulle broke with other Western powers and made France the first major power to recognize communist China by opening diplomatic relations.

With this move, de Gaulle sought to forge an independent foreign policy for France during the Cold War. Macron, like French leaders before him, has nurtured a Gaullist instinct too and talked out against being a vassal of the United States, but such ambitions have mostly been rhetorical with France constrained by its EU and NATO memberships.

Although Macron and Xi tried to project an aura of friendship, their relationship became strained as Macron sat for trilateral talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and accused Xi of aiding Russia in its war against Ukraine through the delivery of military components and engaging in unfair trade practices to the detriment of EU companies.

Washington has leveled similar, and often identical, accusations against Beijing.

In Washington, anti-China measures have become a bipartisan issue, as seen with the recent U.S. legislation signed by U.S. President Joe Biden to force TikTok's parent company, China-based owner ByteDance, to sell the video-sharing platform or face a ban in the U.S.

In recent months, Brussels has made a trade war with China more likely after it opened anti-dumping probes against Chinese electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels. It also accuses Beijing of restricting European medical device makers from gaining fair access to Chinese markets.

The spate of probes began last September when von der Leyen in her State of the Union speech accused China of flooding the EU with heavily subsidized electric cars. Since then, EU officials have complained of China's overcapacity in many areas and denounced a growing trade imbalance.

On Monday, Xi denied that China is bending trade rules.

There is no such thing as a so-called Chinese 'overcapacity problem, Xi said in statements.

On April 23, EU authorities even raided a Chinese surveillance company's offices in the Netherlands and Poland as part of probe into Chinese subsidies. It was the first ever such raid related to a probe of illegal foreign government subsidies.

Relations also have been soured by recent arrests ahead of Xi's visit of suspected Chinese spies, including an aide to a European Parliament far-right German politician and others in Germany accused of providing sensitive military information to China's Ministry of State Security.

So far, China's retaliation against the EU's salvos over unfair trade has been mild. In January, it opened an anti-dumping probe against brandy imported from the EU, sparking fears of Chinese tariffs against French cognac makers. But the threat of a trade war is becoming louder.

Macron and von der Leyen also urged Xi to use his influence on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. All sides agreed that they could do more to help end the conflict.

On Tuesday, Macron is slated to accompany Xi to the Tourmalet pass in the Hautes-Pyrnes mountains, where the French president spent childhood holidays visiting his grandmother.

Xi will visit Serbia on Wednesday where he will mark the 25th anniversary of a deadly NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. Beijing continues to refute NATO's contention that the bombing was an error. The next day, he will visit Budapest and hold talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn.

China has developed strong trade ties with both Serbia, a Balkan nation seeking to join the EU, and Hungary, a contentious EU member. Earlier this year, Serbia was offered membership in BRICS, a China-led trade alliance founded by Russia, Brazil, South Africa and India. This year, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates also joined the organization, which seeks to rival and overtake the U.S.-led global trading system.

Xi's choice to visit both countries, which are often antagonistic toward Brussels, was seen as a way he could drive a wedge between European leaders.

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

See the rest here:
Xi visits Europe amid growing tensions with the West - Courthouse News Service